The Diary of Antera Duke, an Eighteenth-Century African Slave Trader
The Diary of Antera Duke, an Eighteenth-Century African Slave Trader

Author: Stephen D. Behrendt

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2010-03-08

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 0199888515

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In his diary, Antera Duke (ca.1735-ca.1809) wrote the only surviving eyewitness account of the slave trade by an African merchant. A leader in late eighteenth-century Old Calabar, a cluster of Efik-speaking communities in the Cross River region, he resided in Duke Town, forty-five miles from the Atlantic Ocean in what is now southeast Nigeria. His diary, written in trade English from 1785 to 1788, is a candid account of daily life in an African community at the height of Calabar's overseas commerce. It provides valuable information on Old Calabar's economic activity both with other African businessmen and with European ship captains who arrived to trade for slaves, produce, and provisions. This new edition of Antera's diary, the first in fifty years, draws on the latest scholarship to place the diary in its historical context. Introductory essays set the stage for the Old Calabar of Antera Duke's lifetime, explore the range of trades, from slaves to produce, in which he rose to prominence, and follow Antera on trading missions across an extensive commercial hinterland. The essays trace the settlement and development of the towns that comprised Old Calabar and survey the community's social and political structure, rivalries among families, sacrifices of slaves, and witchcraft ordeals. This edition reproduces Antera's original trade-English diary with a translation into standard English on facing pages, along with extensive annotation. The Diary of Antera Duke furnishes a uniquely valuable source for the history of precolonial Nigeria and the Atlantic slave trade, and this new edition enriches our understanding of it.

The Modernity of Witchcraft
The Modernity of Witchcraft

Author: Peter Geschiere

Publisher: University of Virginia Press

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 9780813917030

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To many Westerners, the disappearance of African traditions of witchcraft might seem inevitable wuth continued modernization. In The Modernity of Witchcraft, Peter Geschieres uses his own experiences among the Maka and in other parts of eastern and southern Cameroon, as well as other anthropological research, to argue that contemporary ideas and practices of witchcraft are more a response to modern exigencies than a lingering cultural custom. The prevalence of witchcraft, especially in African politics and entrepreneurship, demonstrates the unlikely balance it has achieved with the forces of modernity. Geshiere explores why modern techniques and commodities, usually of Western Provenance, have become central in rumors of the occult.

Magical Interpretations, Material Realities
Magical Interpretations, Material Realities

Author: Henrietta L. Moore

Publisher: Presbyterian Publishing Corp

Published: 2003-11-17

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 0203398254

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'Magical Interpretations, Material Realities brings together many of today's best scholars of contemporary Africa. The theme of "witchcraft" has long been associated with exoticizing portraits of a "traditional" Africa, but this volume takes the question of occult as a point of entry into the moral politics of some very modern African realities.' - James Ferguson, University of California, USA 'These essays bear eloquent testimony to the ongoing presence and power of the occult imaginary, and of the intimate connection between global capitalism and local cosmology, in postcolonial Africa. A major contribution to scholarship that aims to rework the divide between modernity and tradition.' - Charles Piot, Duke University, USA This volume sets out recent thinking on witchcraft in Africa, paying particular attention to variations in meanings and practices. It examines the way different people in different contexts are making sense of what 'witchcraft' is and what it might mean. Using recent ethnographic materials from across the continent, the volume explores how witchcraft articulates with particular modern settings for example: the State in Cameroon; Pentecostalism in Malawi; the university system in Nigeria and the IMF in Ghana, Sierra Leone and Tanzania. The editors provide a timely overview and reconsideration of long-standing anthropological debates about 'African witchcraft', while simultaneously raising broader concerns about the theories of the western social sciences.

Exploring the Occult and Paranormal in West Africa
Exploring the Occult and Paranormal in West Africa

Author: Josephat Obi Oguejiofor

Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 275

ISBN-13: 3643901836

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The point of departure for this book is a phenomenon which is often referred to as the "return of the religious," a recent but apparently ubiquitous phenomenon which does not fit the modernist axiom of secularization, neither in the "developed" nor the "developing" worlds. In Africa, the last two decades have witnessed a remarkable and steady increase in the spread and reinforcement of occult and paranormal phenomena. The reports on these developments are not restricted to specific countries or areas; they cover the whole continent and surface in the most diverse images, media, stories, and rumors. The credence accorded to them has become an important factor that shapes social relationships in everyday life, economic and political actions, medical decisions, and religious adherence. (Series: African Studies / Afrikanische Studien - Vol. 47)

African Christian Ethics
African Christian Ethics

Author: Samuel Waje Kunhiyop

Publisher: Zondervan Academic

Published: 2019-04-09

Total Pages: 417

ISBN-13: 0310107083

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This is an introduction to African Christian ethics for Christian colleges and Bible schools. The book is divided into two parts. The first part deals with the theory of ethics, while the second discusses practical issues. The issues are grouped into the following six sections: Socio-Political Issues, Financial Issues, Marriage Issues, Sexual Issues, Medical Issues, and Religious Issues. Each section begins with a brief general introduction, followed by the chapters dealing with specific issues in that area. Each chapter begins with an introduction, discusses traditional African thinking on the issue, presents an analysis of relevant biblical material, and concludes with some recommendations. There are questions at the end of each chapter for discussion or personal reflection, often asking students to reflect on how the discussion in the chapter applies to their ministry situation.

Social Spaces of African Societies
Social Spaces of African Societies

Author: Jürgen Ossenbrügge

Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 9783825878504

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Transnational social spaces" have emerged in recent years as a research area within migration and area studies. This volume is about African social spaces. It incorporates examples of Central and Western Africa as well as of African-European relations. Contributors from different disciplines, such as anthropology, geography, and political and educational sciences outline their interpretations of transnational social spaces, based on theoretical and empirical work within a wider research project at the University of Hamburg about contemporary transformations of African societies. Jrgen O?enbrgge is professor of economic and political geography at the University of Hamburg. Mechthild Reh is professor for African Studies at the University of Hamburg

Witchcraft, Intimacy, and Trust
Witchcraft, Intimacy, and Trust

Author: Peter Geschiere

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2013-08-09

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 022604775X

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In Dante’s Inferno, the lowest circle of Hell is reserved for traitors, those who betrayed their closest companions. In a wide range of literatures and mythologies such intimate aggression is a source of ultimate terror, and in Witchcraft, Intimacy, and Trust, Peter Geschiere masterfully sketches it as a central ember at the core of human relationships, one brutally revealed in the practice of witchcraft. Examining witchcraft in its variety of forms throughout the globe, he shows how this often misunderstood practice is deeply structured by intimacy and the powers it affords. In doing so, he offers not only a comprehensive look at contemporary witchcraft but also a fresh—if troubling—new way to think about intimacy itself. Geschiere begins in the forests of southeast Cameroon with the Maka, who fear “witchcraft of the house” above all else. Drawing a variety of local conceptions of intimacy into a global arc, he tracks notions of the home and family—and witchcraft’s transgression of them—throughout Africa, Europe, Brazil, and Oceania, showing that witchcraft provides powerful ways of addressing issues that are crucial to social relationships. Indeed, by uncovering the link between intimacy and witchcraft in so many parts of the world, he paints a provocative picture of human sociality that scrutinizes some of the most prevalent views held by contemporary social science. One of the few books to situate witchcraft in a global context, Witchcraft, Intimacy, and Trust is at once a theoretical tour de force and an empirically rich and lucid take on a difficult-to-understand spiritual practice and the private spaces throughout the world it so greatly affects.